After Eric Cantor’s shocking defeat at the hands of an unknown Tea Party member several months ago, US immigration reform was said to be all but dead, a condition which has been substantially exacerbated by recent tensions over the influx of Central American children crossing the southern US border. However, contrary to initial appeals that Obama is limited in what he can do without a cooperative Congress, the president now appears set to take his latest unilateral decision, one that is set to set republicans fuming and the ranks of future potential democrat voters soaring, when as the WSJ reports, Obama may take “broad action to scale back deportations that could include work permits for millions of people, according to lawmakers and immigration advocates who have consulted with the White House.”

The bodyguard who assassinated President Hamid Karzai’s brother had been working closely with US Special Forces and the CIA before he was recruited by the Taliban, raising fears over the Islamist movement’s increasingly sophisticated intelligence apparatus which has managed to threaten the inner circles of power in Afghanistan.

Sardar Mohammad, who shot Ahmed Wali Karzai at his home in Kandahar City on Tuesday, also held regular meetings with British officials, and had two brothers-in-law serving in a CIA-run paramilitary unit, the Kandahar Strike Force, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

Yet evidence is emerging that the Taliban recruited Mohammad – who was believed to be a friend, confidant and trusted lieutenant of Ahmed Wali Karzai – in an infiltration of the Afghan government’s security apparatus.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — With three rounds of pistol fire, President Hamid Karzai’s half brother was assassinated Tuesday morning in the city he dominated for years, opening a power vacuum that could destabilize Afghan politics in a region at the heart of the American war against the Taliban.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan, was meeting with tribal elders and politicians in his heavily fortified home when longtime confidant Sardar Mohammad arrived with two weapons, one of them concealed, according to an account by a U.S. official.

Mohammad, a police commander, turned over one gun to a guard to appear unarmed, then told Karzai he had important information to share. As they entered a private room, he handed Karzai a piece of paper, the U.S. official said, and as he read it, Mohammad opened fire with the second pistol. Mohammad was then gunned down by Karzai’s guards.